Flea - flee - fly

Confusion exists about these words.

• A flea is an insect (one of several species of the genus pulex). It is famous for biting people, and other animals, and feeding on the blood. (Fleas cannot fly.)

A fleabite is a term for something irritating, but so small that it can be ignored.

• 'To flee' is 'to run away from', 'to escape'. For a note on the difference between flee and fly, to which it is connected, see Flee (irregular verb).
• As a noun, a fly has several meanings, of which some are too specialised to be dealt with here. It can be:
  • any one of an enormous number of species of insect. House flies, fruit flies and crane flies are common in indoors Britain; greenfly, blackfly and whitefly are garden pests; mayfly and horseflies are common in the countryside, near water. (The plural of fl;y is normally the regularly formed flies; but the common usage for the plurals of some species is the same as the singular: gardeners commonly refer to the swarms of insects that feed on their roses as 'greenfly'.) Biologists will tell you that true flies are limited to insects with two wings (the Order Diptera), although many insects called 'flies' in common English do not belong among them. It appears that there are over 200,000 species even of 'true flies', so our common usage 'like flies', meaning in very large numbers, is justified: it is sometimes said that people in an epidemic 'died like flies'. Artificial imitations of flies, tied on hooks, are at the centre of the sport of fly-fishing.
  • The second everyday meaning of fly as a noun is a flap protecting a gap in articles made of cloth. The fly of a tent is a flap that protects the entrance; the fly of a pair of man's trousers is the opening at the front traditionally secured by flybuttons, normally today by a zip.
  • In engineering and mechanics, a flywheel, sometimes abbreviated informally to just fly, is a massive cylinder used to store rotational energy, and smooth out some forms of irregularity. A fly can also be a device to regulate speed by revolving vanes and using the resistance of the air as a limiting device.
  • In the theatre, a fly-tower is a vertical space to which scenery can be flown in or out (= raised from, and lowered to, the stage). A fly-dock is the space in which scenery can be stored, usually in a pit.
• As a verb, 'to fly' is 'to travel through the air'. Birds fly; many insects fly; and since the invention of the aeroplane, humans too can fly. The verb can be used transitively (pilots fly aeroplanes) and intransitively: "When do you fly?" In one developed sense, it means 'to jump' ('the horse flew over the fence'), and with 'at' or 'on' 'to spring up in a sudden attack' ('a cornered rat will fly at its hunter'); in another, it means 'to travel quickly' ('Time flies'). Many colloquial and technical meanings can be discerned. The abstract noun meaning 'an act (or occasion) of flying', or 'the capacity of flying', etc, is flight, not fly.

You may want to see fly (irregular verb), or the related page flew - flu - flue.

For a foolish children's rhyme that may amuse you , go to flea - fly - flew - flue.